Application development

Anodyne's approach to the software lifecycle is composed of four sequential phases, each concluded by a major milestone and an optional fifth phase. At each phase-end an assessment is made to determine whether the objectives of the phase have been met. A satisfactory assessment allows the project to move to the next phase.

For small projects or design oriented website engagements, a single pass through the development cycle is generally all that's required. The development cycle can be broken down as follows:

• Inception: a few meetings that allow management to convey their vision to the development team.
• Elaboration: the building of wireframes and prototypes to show to management that their vision has been conveyed.
• Construction: building the project. Note that wireframes and prototypes developed in the previous phase are generally not incorporated into the final product. They were built rapidly to convey information but don't have the architectural support necessary to survive the production environment.
• Transition: deploying the application to it's production environment.
• Evolution: analyze comments/suggestions from end user feedback to determine if another development cycle should be undertaken. This can happen well after the completion of the transition phase.

Larger projects will drive through the development cycle more than once. Each pass through results in a release of the project although the complete feature set will generally not be realized in the first iteration.

The first iteration of the development cycle for larger projects tends to be larger than subsequent cycles. It has the responsibility of laying the architectural foundation that the rest of the project will use. This can include component architecture strategies, user authentication and management and other utility and administrative aspects of the project that are necessary before use can begin.

Anodyne wears many hats during an application development engagement. We fill the roles of analyst, designer, developer, architect, project manager and many others when those skills are not readily available in your organization.